Inside: A Tranquil Garden Wedding In The Cotswolds The Wedding Edition

The Story

Charlie and I met in 2012, on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean – back then, not many people had heard about the Maldives, but our families had both chosen to visit a small, Italian run island in March of 2012, and fate had it that we were the only two English families on the island so it wasn’t long before we were chatting away, and then sipping champagne together on the beach!

Venue

We got married in our village church in the Cotswolds, before our guests followed a brass band down pathways in our village, all the way to our garden where we had two beautiful Sperry tents set up for the celebrations.

Fashion

I really struggled initially to find a wedding dress; having spent many years wearing beautiful gowns for work (and pleasure!) and with a clear imagine in my head of what I dreamt of for the perfect wedding dress. Initially, I was disappointed in the dresses I tried; honestly I felt
that they were overpriced for the quality that I was trying, and the only dresses I loved were quite literally tens of thousands of pounds!

A friend of mine recommended Emma Beaumont, and along with her incredibly talented team, Emma was able to create my dress of dreams. I drew out a sketch of my dream dress, and we brainstormed the details together, and I tried on some of her existing gowns to get a feel of the quality and design details. I was so thrilled that she was so open to doing something she’d never done before; floral embroidery – to bring my dream dress to life.

I wore Valentino rockstud shoes which were barely visible on the wedding day; as they’re SO comfortable, and my ‘Something Blue’ was having ‘Dada’ stitched, in blue, above my heart into my dress, after Charlie’s grandad who had passed away a few weeks before our Cotswold wedding.

Jewellery

I was lucky enough to be able to loan some sensational diamond pieces from David Morris for our wedding day; their floral Miss Daisy collection worked perfectly for our floral themed day!

Bridal Party

The bridesmaid dresses were a very last minute switch up, and I will be eternally grateful to Maids to Measure for their incredible customer service, sourcing 4 beautiful sage green dresses, each a different design, for my bridesmaids. The girls looked and felt incredible as each design was chosen to flatter their different bodies, and my bridesman Rory wore a sage green suit by Reiss.

Transportation

Getting married in the Cotswolds means that we had to transport our guests down some very narrow and bumpy lanes to our home! We pulled together a fleet of Series 1 (very old!) Land Rover Defenders to shuttle our guests around, and our florists decked out our very own Defender in incredible blooms, so it was the perfect mode of transport to get me to the church!

Tablescape

Inside the dining sperry tent, we wanted to create a garden party vibe; while making it feel very much like the kind of dinner party that Charlie and I regularly throw for our guests, so we chose tableware that we have in our own home; we ordered 40 of our favourite Pooky lamps with the Morris&Co lampshades, placed Bertioli candles all across the tables (You’ll find one in every room in our house!) And we even sourced Charingworth cutlery for our guests to dine with; which is the exact set that we use at home – so it really did feel like a ‘Charlie and Josie dinner party’ – just on a much bigger scale!

Food & Drink

This was very much Charlie’s domain, and oh boy, was the F&B a HUGE highlight! When we moved to the Cotswolds, we discovered a quaint cafe called Quince and Clover, in Great Tew – and made it our ‘local’ spot. Every week, Charlie and I would visit for brunch and to pick up salads, admiring their use of locally sourced ingredients, and making firm friends with the entire team there. It was a no brainer to ask Quince and Clover to cater our Cotswold wedding, and the food was SUBLIME. Many of our guests actually said it was the best food they’d ever eaten; we drew a map on the back of our menus so that guests could see the origin of the ingredients (most of them locally sourced from the Cotswolds, even some from my kitchen garden!) And we ensured the ingredients were organic too. The ‘Kitchen Garden risotto’ was a personal highlight for me!

I worked with Quince and Clover to create a perfect list of cocktails which guests could choose from, in addition to Nyetimber (English Sparkling Wine) and Leoube wines – again we wanted to keep all the suppliers as local as possible, from ‘English champagne’ to a wine brand that’s based just a few miles down the road. Cocktails were created using spirits from The Cotswold Distillery, which is in the next village along from us!

Entertainment

The entertainment was really incredible during our wedding; from a Gospel Choir during the church ceremony, a string quartet and brass band, to having the sensationally talented Okiem playing piano during the wedding breakfast. The party truly got started as night fell, as The SoundHouse Band got all or our guests dancing – they were truly sensational – I quite literally danced all night, taking only one 30 second break to dash to the loo!!

Beauty Regime & Wellness

I had the incredible Jess from Laura Mercier create my perfect ‘soft pink’ wedding day Makeup look, she was such a joy to spend my wedding morning with, and I could not have been more thrilled with my natural, glowing makeup look! Summer and Millie from Michael Van Clarke created the perfect wedding day hair for me, and my entire bridal party, and I’ve been visiting Michael Van Clarke in Marylebone for blonde hair appointments for the last 3 years, so it was wonderful having a team that I’m so friendly with, with us on the wedding day!

Favourite Wedding Gifts

We decided to ask guests to make a donation to a few of our favourite charities, instead of physical gifts.

Honeymoon

Charlie and I escaped for a few days of sunshine, for a mini-moon in Sicily after the Cotswold wedding, it was a truly gorgeous trip and great to relax and absorb everything that had happened during our wedding weekend (we flew out 9 days after the wedding which we felt was perfect, not too rushed) and we plan on visiting the Maldives in January for Honeymoon part 2!